Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
World of Warcraft: Editorial: Look Forward
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Garret Fuller has penned his latest World of WarCraft editorial, partly in response to a NY Times article (registration required) that ran a few weeks ago.
| Recently, the New York Times ran an article about the content in World of Warcraft. Basically, the article focused on the difference in player base and game play for the casual and hardcore gamer. Around the time of Halloween, I wrote a similar editorial trying to hash out the differences between casual and hardcore play. This debate is still raging among the Warcraft community. With 5.5 million players, not all of them can be hardcore. The article brings up some excellent points, which I will get to later. Although the real issue of casual vs. hardcore was spoken about by the reporter and Jeff Kaplan (Lead Game Designer for Blizzard), it certainly was not enough. I wanted to highlight a few things in the article and add what I think the player reaction might be. Being an avid player myself I certainly want to try to understand where Blizzard caused this huge divide of casual and hardcore players. |
You can read the article here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
i think that games, no matter how nostalgic eventually have simply had their shot.
i remember my first time playing halo and wow, the first few weeks or months when they were absolutely amazing, before i only came to play them for competition.
thinking about it right now even makes me excited.
i'm not really too concerned about where wow goes though...
i just dont think content could really recapture the spirit the game once had.
i guess i'm looking forward to the sequel, one with no instances and a fresh take from great developers.
what worries me most is that game developers seem to be adopting wows worst qualities in order to save money.
dungeons and dragons, guild wars, sun, huxley...
i'm really becoming terrified that there wont be any new great game experiences like wow was because developers are growing more and more short sighted.
i really hope that games in the future will continue to excite me to ludicrus levels and epiphanies, but sometimes i cant help but wonder why game developers dont give a crap about the things i love about games.
i know my views may be subjective, but i believe alot of people are with me on this. hope vanguard is good... graphics look terrible but gameplay will decide it.
what kind of insanity inspires developers to create less ambitious games..? how will that possibly encourage new players to join mmo's?
ps... wow is now over 6 million.
--people who believe in abstinence are unsurprisingly also some of the ugliest most sexually undesired people in the world.--
Reading this has opened my eyes to the possibility of creating a rift among the hardcore players and casual gamers. I never realized it but it's true. If you don't do the end game instances you're left with having to go around in the Tier 0 set while many around you have the crazy Tier 1 and 2 sets, completely outshining you in every aspect of the game. I've been a gamer ever since I was little. I went from game to game, genesis, n64, eventually to the pc, reverted to the xbox later on but came back to the pc. I found that my interest moved on from game to game. Some major changes included saving vs not saving. Then it eventually became details, gameplay, control, etc. My next big threshold was solo vs multiplayer. Eventually I had my run through the famous games: AOE, SC, then to the fps's Halo, CS, DoD (went for awhile) Eventually I came into WoW this past summer. I realized that I went from game to game based on what I can do. CS felt like an on going war where my objective was to kil(I'm not psycho) But it all became a repitition. I think I came into WoW with the expectation that WOW IT'S A REAL WORLD since it was huge and had alot of things. And now it seems that it all comes to a near end. Sure we can do the MC runs and BWL runs. Then we can do the next big instance and conquer it. Then the next and next. But eventually it will become a repition like all games. WOW I rambled on for awhile. Meh, I guess this is what happens to some ppl when u donate blood
I have to agree with this post. I even stopped at level 59, created a hunter to level 12, then decided to give EQ2 a second shot. I don't really enjoy EQ2 that much, but at least I can accomplish things solo, and see places I haven't seen before.
I also miss questing in many areas of WoW, especially green areas such as the high forrest in feralas, etc. Stranglethorn Vale was so lush, and full of great adventure! Silithus and Eastern Plaguelands are just so.....dry! And I play late-night...not much opportunity to raid (I have yet to be on one).
I even find myself wanting to log into UO after 3 years, just for the adventure.
what i want for every mmporpg (im playing l2 atm) and not just wow is the opportunity to choose a limited time server.
im frustrated to compete with people playing 10h a day when i want to limit myselve to 30h/week.
with all the discussion about addiction to mmorpg there should be at least the option to limited yourselve to be a casual gamer
make a server for the casual gamer
limit it to 30h/week gametime per account
maybe increase rewards/xp a bit
maybe decrease subscription price (also not needed imho)
it would be just like in sports where u have professional players in one league (on one server) and casual players in another league (on another server)
if your bored, visit my blog at:
http://craylon.wordpress.com/ dealing with the look of mmos with the nvidia 3d vision glasses
A rather good suggestion. I too hate that I can´t compete with other players anymore. I rarley can play the hours my guild does ZG or MC, and when I do there is no use since everyone has soooo much dkp that it´s no use for me even biddning. I never liked instances very much in the first place, cause once you go into one, you are stuck for at least three hours. Sometimes life calls, and you have to stop playing. But then you might ruin time invested by other players in your party/raid. Last spring my girlfriend nearly broke up with me cause of wow, so I have to be very careful not to play a lot when she is at home. After all, she is a lot more important than wow.
The odd thing about this game is that you tend to admire those players with all epic items, but in the real world these players are very likely to be complete loosers, with no jobs, no girlfriends, no IRL friends, not much contact with family, no outdoor life, no partying... only welfare programs and wow. Blizzard has created a monster.
It sums up the game perfectly that article but I doubt it will make a different, too many children have been subject to the epic crack blizz are shoving down their throats and they are just creating new forms of crack tbh.
The only fun things i do in WoW, is reroll on new servers where you can enjoy that exciting feeling of leveling, having world pvp and not having to worry about the losers who spend all day every day jerking off over their phat lewts. Still, even this gets boring after the third reroll.
The article was spot-on. I would like to elaborate on some things, though.
WOW's problems are not simply a few overall deal-breakers. It's more like several little things that start to feed into one another and make the small problems bigger, through nothing more than the fact that the mechanics are all interconnected.
Let's take raiding. Raid content wouldn't normally be a problem. There is not one casual player that wants raiding to be eliminated, reduced, or in any other way impacted. Rather, the problem is with the fact that there are no viable alternatives. Those alternatives exist, but due to various issues and problems with WOW in other places, those alternatives simply aren't very feasible in the game as it is now.
Like PVP. It was a great idea, and I am firmly of the opinion you cannot have a good MMO without PVP anymore. It just adds so much to the game. For WOW to make it completely optional to the individual player makes it even better, I believe. It's something you can do, or not, however you feel about it. But the Honor system part of PVP is absolutely horrible; it requires a huge investment of time and effort, and the rewards offered are of subjective value to various players (some argue they are good though not worth the effort, others say they aren't even comparable to the PVE-raid loot). The fact that at level 60 many PVPers are in fact decked out in said PVE-raid loot just makes the situation worse, because rather than PVP being totally about skill, it also is about how much time you sink into it (even losers get rewarded with Honor, after all, and theoretically a hardcore PVP loser can out-Honor a casual PVP winner) and the gear you carry (which add such significant bonuses it isn't even funny; ask any spellcaster like a mage or warlock the difference in PVP survivability and damage capability between someone wearing all blue items, and someone wearing all purple items).
But PVP isn't the only thing that's flawed. The raid instances themselves are the most massive form of farming I've ever seen. There are those who argue otherwise, but I can only ask where the term "farm status" originated, if those instances weren't in fact a form of farming. For one thing, raid participants themselves are merely there to perform 1-3 strictly defined duties, and little else. Attempting anything other than the formulated plan of success (often easily found on places like Allakhazam or GameFAQs, where guides can tell you precisely how to do anything with minimal hassle) often results in being kicked from the individual raid group, and could even result in a faction black-listing someone. Druids, for example, were horribly disappointed when it became possible to use a Feral spec to become true off-tank/healer hybrids, much as Blizzard appeared to want them to be. Raid leaders to this day mostly refuse to take any druid who is not specifically Resto specced, because they are to a person incapable of recalculating any strategy that was devised over a year ago to defeat certain raid bosses. I would predict that every class, from the bread-and-butter priest to the odd hybrid or multi-functional shamans and paladins, will experience the same thing. Blizzard will fine-tune the class, but it won't matter because the raid community demands absolute obedience to a strategy that could be outdated.
Non-raid alternatives simply don't exist. Aside from a few quests after hitting level 60, there's nothing left but farming, either solo or in a group. PVP itself imparts the strongest social imperative to raid; those who refuse are often black-listed or otherwise spoken against as causing their entire faction in a match problems. The seasonal/holiday events themselves have stopped being more casual; Lunar Festival presented a raid boss that took a full and savvy raid to beat, and not much else (other than some silly clothing and a few consumables). Valentine's content was far less worthwhile, and barely did much that wasn't fully completed within a day (or even just a few hours).
So what could Blizzard possibly do? Well, they apparently think that casual players want easier items, so they are considering "itemization" changes. Seems that they wish to introduce stuff that drops easier and new stuff that bridges some perceived gap between various tiers of gear. What they consistantly refuse to perceive or comprehend is that the problem isn't the lack of items, but A) the power of the items that currently exist, and
the lack of opportunity to gain said items in any situation other than pure raiding. Rather than fix those, they believe that by adding new gear to the game, this will solve the problem.
No, it will not. Content, only content, is the problem. Those who say that non-raid instances outnumber raid instances are using a logical fallacy that is almost a shame for anyone to utter: they are comparing all non-raid instances, including pre-60 content, to the raid instances, which are mostly post-60. Even this isn't entirely true; a good many pre-60 instances can be raided, but only in smaller numbers than places like MC or BWL. But if the raiding community wishes to dispense with these facts, so be it; I do not wish to remove their content, at any level.
My desires for what needs to be change in WOW to make it more casual-friendly are as simplistic as one can get in an MMO:
1. Retool the PVP system. Rewards should be based on total HKs and Reputation with the vendors selling them. Honor should only be for titles, and nothing more. Let NPC guards give HKs, and let civilians keep DKs (which only subtract HKs 1-for-1). This should permit outdoor PVP a viable alternative to those who simply do not like grinding the BGs, and would even permit solo players to earn some HKs once in a while.
2. Introduce more alternatives to large raid instances. World bosses requiring smaller groups to take out, instances requiring no more than 15- or even 10-man raids, anything that isn't just more farming and/or high-volume raiding.
3. Reduce the needs for Reputation. The grind for is not in any way stopping the hardcore from obtaining rewards at a grotesque rate, and it is burning out casual players far more often than rewarding them.
4. Reevaluate the epic gear in the game. Either raise the requirements to use it (as the expansion comes out), lower the stats they provide, or start finding new ways to allow more casual players to eventually obtain things. For the last option, you could implement a game-based DKP system that is independant of the guilds, which allowed a player to earn DKP with boss-kills, and "buy" items he could afford from the bodies of said bosses. This eliminates the need for a player to dedicate themselves to a raiding guild just to obtain items (this was a big problem on my server; little guilds closed shop simply because all the upper-level players quit to join the three or four raid guilds in each faction). The casual can slowly joing pick-up groups and fill in empty scheduled raid slots whenever the opportunity arises, and eventually obtain the things they want. This system could even restrict certain items to certain instances, and the values involved can be adjusted so that even casual players will want to play through a raid instance at least once to obtain necessary points (i.e. make some items and bosses worth a lot more points, so that killing, say, Nefarion is worth killing a dozen or more lesser foes, and quickens obtaining gear).
5. Be more communcative with the customer base. One of the "Blues", Tseric, once noted that he considers us more like players than just customers. Well, that's great, but that only means we deserve even more communication than other companies offer the customers. Almost nowhere do you find the sheer lack of news and information than at Blizzard; even SOE has generally better customer service (and that is saying a hell of a lot). Keeping information hidden only makes us not interested in WOW's future, because it has none as far as anyone knows. Even the 40-man raid instance was only recently announced, and supposedly was due to be released within a couple of months or so. Such ineffective marketing of WOW has led to indifference with the game at best, and antipathy towards the company at worst.
6. The server stability issue was a mess about 6 months ago, and not only is there in any word on when it'll be fixed, but as time goes on, more players add further and further burden to the existing servers. The release of 1,000 servers might not even alleviate the problem; there are so many playing the game now, that it is likely that even if they start to make things less problematic, they will only get worse as word gets out that the situation is resolved (even if it is so only barely).
Like I say, these are not in any way unreasonable requests. They can be implemented. But convincing Blizzard is impossible. They are currently led by those responsible for the first EQ, who apparently believe that WOW is to be an improvement on it. This is a ridiculous philosophy to have; it basically precludes the notion that WOW could be much more than a more polished and updated version of a game so old that it reduced the number of servers it had simply out of lack of use.
Such is life. Companies typically ignore sound ideas from the customers, and those customers eventually move along to bigger and better things. I doubt this post, or a million like it, could possible change anything, but eh, I got nothing better to do sitting at work and wishing I was logged into some game at home.
And there's plenty of other games than WOW. I predict that Guild Wars, Everquest 2, and many others will soon receive a wave of refugees, looking for servers that don't crap out on them, and gameplay that doesn't bottleneck after you hit that last level.
I just hope someone out there gets a clue and delivers. I don't care what game does, but when they do, they'll have my money.
Casual vs Hardcore has always been a debate, it isn't specific to WoW. The fact that they have captured 5.5 million subscribers, however, means they have come a heck of a lot closer than most other games. And so long as they maintain or increase those numbers, we can expect that they will do nothing but maintain the status quo.
The people that complain on the WoW forums are the minority of the total subscriber base. And while their postings may echo the feelings of a larger percentage of players than actually post, it isn't costing Blizzard a thing. They can continue being tight lipped about how they are growing the game. They can continue to add content that will favor one sect of players. But until they start taking a hit on the bottom line, they will simply continue to maintain the most popular MMOG to date. From a business perspective there is nothing wrong with what they are doing as the numbers continue to prove they are successful.
Here is the sad fact that many people are unwilling to face: You cannot make MMOG similar to any that are out there today and have it geared toward casual players. You will always have hardcore players that have money and time they are willing to spend on games. No business is going to turn those players away. So the divide between players has to be addressed in game design. Any game that is based on a model of advancement where time is a factor will always favor the hardcore player. No amount of conventions that also conform to the rules of operating the game like a business can change this.
So when the gaming community has had enough EQs, WoWs and all their look alike titles, perhaps they will start demanding and supporting something different. This year marks 10 years since UO came out. While not the first MMOG, it was the game that really started the mainstreaming of genre. In 10 years of development, MMOG are still fundamentally alike. Hopefully the next 10 years won't be spent having this same argument and looking at future titles like EQ X and WoW V.
It's not that hard to keep hardcore players happy. You simply put some extremely hard content in the game that only a select number of players can or would ever want to do, make sure the drops are better than what anyone else has, and preto, hardcore players are in high cotten.
Blizzard seems to interpret most of the feedback about lack of content at 60, or lack of an end game, as a demand for more of that sort of thing. But that's not what most WoW players want. They want more of the same kind of content they were enjoying on the way to level 60. Instead, at max level Blizzard basically says (1) become a raider; (2) PvP; (3) roll an alt; or (4) quit and play someone else's game. I opted for (4). So have a lot of people.
I can't understand how a company that made such a delightful game for levels 1-59 seems incapable or unwilling to allow its max level characters the same kind of content they enjoyed before max level.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I basically agree with Eindrachen.
As long as they have people like Tigole designing content, casuals/time restricted players are screwed.
He is so busy making sure that raiders can prove their Eweenies are bigger than everybody elses, that there is nothing going on for the rest of us.
I don't understand why a casual player complains about not getting what a hardcore player gets. A casual player can accomplish anything a hardcore player can, it just takes more actual days to do it. It doesn't take more game time.
There is no race between casual and hardcore players, that's just silly. There will always be those few players who can get to 60 in 2 weeks RL time, and those who never reach 60 for whatever reason. Enjoy the process of the game for yourself, not as a race with other players.
As to end game content - 40 man raids are cumbersome, but I think they have there place. I would personally like to see a continuation of quests like we get in earlier levels - where the rewards are cool items, since there's no experience reward. I don't hold with the notion that the best items must be acquired in groups. This would make the end game more interesting to me.
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
I have 2 level 60s, and a slew of 40's, 30's, 20's, teens, etc... on all kinds of servers.
5-man's are the most fun in game. I've farmed them to boredom. MC/BWL/ZG/AQ/etc have become jobs that make me cringe when I get the invite.
Battlegrounds are fun, but so ridicuously imbalanced (sometimes) that I've basically given up on them.
World PVP is dead because of said BGs.
I'm waiting for the next free trial to really grab me, like WoW did.
As one of the so-called casual players (I prefer RL Player), I can say that this statement is patently not true. If I am not prepared to spend 4+ hours online at a time, I cannot get into the higher end raids. I cannot get into some of the larger, more intense instances. I don't have the time available. Basically, that meant I cannot do the content. This makes the bottom line that, I cannot compete because I cannot get the equipment that others can get. This is directly related to the "binds when picked up" equipment.
As a casual player, I would like to see similar items available without having to do instances or huge raids. Frankly, I play many different types of characters because I love the content during the levelling up process. Other than raids and big instances, there really is no content for casual players like me. What I would like to see is something that we casual players can do and still have available the high end loots. As an example, how about a level 60 instance that can only be run by groups or 3 or 4? Maybe an instance for soloing? Make them easy enough that 2 hours of play should allow completion. This should make it less attractive to hardcore gamers as it will not keep their interest.
I would also suggest some things that force us to go back to some of the earlier zones. Maybe some portals that take you to a different place depending on the quest you are running and the item that activates the portal. All this would be quest driven. Quests are content. Quests are fun. What about a Geas quest or series that must be completed solo? There are many things that could be done, the question is what is Blizzard willing to do?
-=ZG=-
After a nice slow 1 year climb to 60 (I AM 43 with 5 little kids) I looked at the end-game and decided it wasn't for me. I didn't post a rant on the forums (although there is nothing wrong with that) I just quit. Yep, unsubcribed. Moving on. I wonder how many others, quickly or slowly, come to the same conclusion?
This article is dead on.
The thing really killing WoW right now is not a lack of epic raiding content. My guild is struggling trying to fit all the peic instances into the game each week.
The rep grind has gotten out of hand. ZG is the worst designed instance in the game. Sure it looks cool and has some very interesting bosses, but it was hyped as a casual raiders instance and has more bosses then MC or BWL. Now with AQ open we have not one, but two new reps to grind out. Add to this reps for crafting stuff and it is nuts.
Blizzard can add more content for the 5-20 man raids and that would help, but I think the thing they reall need to add would be a better guild alliance system with a universal channel that can be moderated easier then the chreated channels currently being used. This would help build the community aspect of the game and open up the epic raid content to some of the smaller and more casual guilds.
HI all,
I very rarely reply to an article I wrote in forums but this one is different. After reading this article again a month after the NYT article came out I can quite honestly say that WOW has not changed one bit. I still raid ZG with my guild but that is only for the faction grind to get my epic chest piece. Other than that I dont really care about the game any more. WOW has pretty much lost it for me. Ive honestly spent the last few weeks painting up a new Nurgle Army for Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I also have been previewing some other games for MMORPG. I do play WOW still, but not near the capacity that I was. Honestly it all slowed down for me when AQ opened. My wife and I logged in for the event, had a good time playing and then tried the instance. The first run thru felt like ZG all over again with a different look. WOW has had several patches and NOTHING has been done with world PVP. Don't these developers know that end-game PVP is what drives MMORPGs to stay alive? Players love to test their skills against each other....GIVE THEM THAT CHANCE !! AND DONT MAKE THEM WAIT 30 MINUTES TO DO IT!!! After years of online gaming it just Frustrates me.
Eindrachen I do agree with you completely. Starkmd and Simstar I am right there with you!!
I have not given up on WOW yet though, mostly because Im waiting for Warhammer Online to really make the switch. I do also like the idea that games like SEED Online and Age of Conan are presenting to break people away from the MMORPG grind that EQ and WOW are giving us.
I hope this response helps. I also hope to see you all out there in cyberworld trying new games that break the norm!!!
Cheers,
Garrett "Shags" Fuller
A most excellent post Eindrachen!
I wish there was a C'est la Vie server. A server that casual gamers could transfer to, with the expectation of joining a server for the casual gamer. Solo and small group content over 40-man dungeon content. Heck, leave out the raid dungeons altogether!
I personally would prefer more level 60ish quests that are soloable or open to a small group, with decent rewards...even if there are no purple drops that compare to the current raid loot. People that would move to C'est la Vie server wouldn't really care much about uber-loot anyway, since we wouldn't be PvP/raid oriented folks.....thus no need for the "this is the only wep your class should carry" attitude. Just give us drops that will make us a fair opponent for the same level mobs, etc. Give us a chance to adventure in a small group or solo, yet have a chance to complete a quest or adventure without 39 other players with 8 hours to blow. Heck keep the level cap at 60 even...and let us gain xp hunting, then spend that xp on faction points with the various factions. Since I don't plan to Pvp, or raid...there is zero reason for me to adventure at level 59 and get to a point where I hunt for no xp. Ok, one more talent point gained at 60...I'm a paladin, that extra point will have no affect on me really hehe.
Current server transfers I see as nothing but "here is your opportunity to move to a less populated server, so your 40-man raid will lag a bit less". Zero reasons for a casual player to switch servers.
There is a ton of adventure available to the sub-55ish group, so no reason to change anything there. Time to recognize the fact that there are tens of thousands of casual players out there, that refuse to be forced to join an uber guild or beg to be accepted by 39 other players for a chance to compete and enjoy high end content. We casual players always refuse to be forced to group, and always just move on to another game. Period..you lose us.
Notice Ultima Online still has a decent paying player base, even with 2d graphics and being "ancient" in terms of MMORG's? It's because after all these years, I can still log in and solo, or join a small group...and feel like I/we "rule the land". A few hours online...and terrific "gratification" for that time spent. I've had the same WoW account since release day. I've had 6 UO accounts...all still active, since it's release day. I'd gladly cancel them all if I saw any reason to stay in WoW.
Here's a thought...on this fictional WoW C'est la Vie server...substitute 20 and 40 player raid dungeons for...(gasp)....player housing? Over the years (playing since early 80's, Legends on the old bbs system before the world wide web existed) I have noticed something...without player housing, there is no roleplaying. Don't ask me why...just a fact jack.
And now for a statement that will no doubt alienate a large portion of players, and get me flamed. I am a casual player due to the fact that I have a career, a family, hobbies......other things to do besides game. This does not mean that I pay a lower fee per month than a person with time on his hands, no responsibilites, off of school for the summer...etc. But it DOES mean that I can and will pay that monthly fee as long as it is fun...and you don't have to worry about guys like me leaving because some new hot-snot shooter came out on the xbox, my parents refuse to pay my fee any longer, I have to study and not allowed to play....can't afford latest equiptment to run the game..blah blah. We casual gamers tend to be the long-run loyal subscribers. Hell, like I said I have active accounts in games I haven't logged into for years...because I can afford to. I've noticed over the years that there is a base of players that only play a game while they can be the LEETEST...then as soon as another comes out, they go try to be the leetest in that new game. Us casual gamers don't give a rats butt about leetness, we stay if the adventure, and community, are good. You have my credit card number, and I won't really even notice the monthly fee even if I take a few months off...as long as I have a reason I may want to pick the game up again with my character intact. I haven't logged in now for a month because I don't even know 39 other players online at midnight pacific...so I cannnot play. This is the first game that has made me consider hitting that "cancel" key every week. I just see no future here for me, a casual gamer, right now.
Oh well thanks for reading my vent! Oswyn/Makus/Blakheart on Silver Hand...if you ever want to hook up and get some casual guild thing going give me a holler!
May luck find you all!
What a cumbersome quote system! I would like to be able to quote just part of a person's post.
'RL player', jeez!
If you cannot spend an occasional 4 hrs in game you are not even a casual player, just a sometime player.
I heartily agree that the high end gear should be available through solo quests. Maybe I didn't say this as plainly in my original post, but I said it. Asheron's Call did this, and it's one reason I played that game for years. Frankly, the whole 'elite' system is garbage, in my opinion; its only purpose is to prevent solo play in instances, or at least delay it until you get no experience points for kills.
I do not consider myself to be a casual or hardcore player - somewhere in between.
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
I like ZG, it's one of my favorite instances because I don't have to spend so long running through the whole thing
. I don't understand why the number of bosses has anything to do with it - you don't have to kill them all if you don't want to. More instances like ZG!
I could care less about PvP, it doesn't add anything for me. I see why others like it, just my personal tastes are different.
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
smokeysong---
"What a cumbersome quote system! I would like to be able to quote just part of a person's post"
Just cut-n-paste the portion you want to quote, then add your reply...like I just did with your sentence.
If your aren't familiar with cut-n-paste it is simple and oh so handy! Just place your curser at the beginning (or end) of the text you want to quote, and hold down your left mouse button. Keep it held down and drag it in the appropriate direction to "highlight" the desired text. Then, release the mouse button, and press the control and c keys at the same time. This "cuts" the text (stores it in memory to use when you want). Then just open the message window where you plan to post. Left click the mouse once so that you have your blinking curser, just as if you wanted to start typing something. Press control and v at the same time. This will "paste" what you previously "cut". Some people do as I did with your words, and place the quotation mark, then use control v....so that it looks quoted. This can be used in posts, in your e-mails...etc. It also works with graphics and pictures, links that appear anywhere that you want to send to someone else...etc. After you do it a few times it will become second nature...and you can copy huge portions of text and move it anywhere, in a heartbeat! You don't have to drag the mouse over every letter in a paragraph..just start on the left, drag to the far right...then move your mouse up or down, and it will highlight entire lines of text for you. I could copy this entire reply by just starting at the first letter, dragging right to the end of the first line, then moving my mouse straight downwards to the last line. You'll see when you play with it.
Hope I explained that correctly
edit: forgot to mention...cut-n-paste goes into temporary memory. You can cutnpaste the same thing over and over....but once you use the control-c command again, you lose what you had previously cut. If you turn off your computer, etc....it wipes the "cut" from memory. So..it is only temporary, and takes up no space on your hardrive or anything everytime you copy something
It is simply placed in random access memory and nothing is written to your drive.
I also just ended up quitting. Kudos to the other "casual" players above. I also beleive that they make up a strong but quiet player base of games. If not satisfied we just leave. If we are happy, we gladly pay even if its days / weeks between play times.
There was not alot of variety of things to do once you reached 60, & playing at late nites due to my schedule, not alot of people playing. No pvp, no soloable quests, no soloable raiding / instances, just boring faction grinding so that i might have the chance to craft a useless item when compared to epic / raid.
The 50/50 solo/group grind up to lvl was 60 was awesome fun - too bad lvl 60 had nothing to keep me playing & paying.
Blakeheart -
Just cut-n-paste the portion you want to quote, then add your reply...like I just did with your sentence.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah, but you don't get the same separaters automatically added
Thanks for your post, I'm sure it helped.
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
While I just starting playing WoW, my biggest concern is not the end game (I'm no where close yet!), but the fact that so many folks play the game like its a twitch FPS game. That is damn annyoing at times. I run through an instance with some friends and I have a hard time keeping up. They almost run through entire thing. What's the hurry?
I see that D&D Online is suppose to be played with a game pad! WTF? MMORPG played with a game pad?
I also don't see the deal with PvP (though I'm on a PvP server 'cause that's where my buddies hang out), seems sort of boring to me. Guess that may change.
What's life like on non-PvP servers? What about the RP servers? Is the end-game all that much different on these server types?
A large concern is how the boost in level will affect players who have reached their end-game at level 60. For example, will dungeons like Molten Core and Blackwing Lair become obsolete? Will all the time players spend farming those dungeons for epic items go to waste? With Blizzard using level based loot as rewards for questing, PvP, and factions, will these items even compare to the level seventy gear that we all expect to see? This is a very difficult question to ask and unfortunately Blizzard has not given any straight answers to their players.
Ok. Seriously boosting the level 60 epics to 70 epics sounds so incredibly retarded. Yeah people spent countless hours achieving them, but already Blizzard is making more and more raid instances with more and more tier sets all the time. Whats wrong with making new sets at 70? Yes you will have to make some tweaks here and there to the 60 epic equipment, but one of the greatest part of WoW is that you almost can never has the "best" stuff in the game all the time, theres always something better coming, and level 70 epics is just another way to enlarge the variety of epics, maybe make the level 70 stuff legendary! yeah the level 60 stuff will become useless at 70 once you get the stuff, but level 60-70 grind will be extremely difficult compared to any other levels, the epics will greatly decrease the time spent grinding or w/e. thats just my opinion.